Father of Slain Navy Seal Has a Message for Donald Trump: 'Don't Hide Behind My Son's Death'

Bill Owens, father of Ryan Owens, the Navy SEAL killed during the Yemen raid conducted shortly after Donald Trump took office, has a message for Donald Trump. 

"Don’t hide behind my son’s death to prevent an investigation," he told the Miami Herald.

"I want an investigation.…The government owes my son an investigation,” the grieving father said. 

The Trump administration has touted the botched operation as a win. As Politico writes, team Trump "billed the Yemen raid as 'a huge success,' a characterization that prompted Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to criticize the Trump administration for celebrating an operation that resulted in the death of a U.S. service member." 

The White House also shifted responsibility for the raid to the Obama administation, saying they only carried it out "because of a desire to conduct it on a moonless night that would not occur until after the president was sworn in."

Bill Owens isn't buying it. He asks, "Why at this time did there have to be this stupid mission when it wasn’t even barely a week into his administration? Why? For two years prior, there were no boots on the ground in Yemen — everything was missiles and drones — because there was not a target worth one American life. Now all of a sudden we had to make this grand display."

Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders offered a tepid response, telling ABC's The Week, “I haven't had the chance to speak with him directly about that, but I would imagine that he would be supportive of that." 

As Politico explains, Owens' parents were so disgusted by Trump’s "very public feuding with and treatment of a Gold Star family during his campaign last year... that [they] refused to meet with Trump when the president came to Dover Air Force Base. Instead, the president met with other members of the family while Bill Owens and his wife sat in another room." 

Read the entire interview here.